Immigration crackdown could stymie efforts to fight bird flu outbreak, experts fear

Los Angeles Times

18-07-2025

As authorities brace for a potential resurgence in bird flu cases this fall, infectious disease specialists warn that the Trump administration's crackdown on undocumented immigrants could hamper efforts to stop the spread of disease.
Dairy and poultry workers have been disproportionately infected with the H5N1 bird flu since it was first detected in U.S. dairy cows in March 2024, accounting for 65 of the 70 confirmed infections, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
As is the case throughout agriculture, immigrants make up a significant proportion of this workforce and both industry groups and academics say many of these workers probably entered the U.S. illegally. That could spell trouble for a future outbreak of bird flu, infectious disease experts say, making workers reluctant to cooperate with health investigators.
'Most dairy and poultry workers, regardless of their immigration status, are in no way going to be like, 'hey, government, yeah, of course, check me out, I think I might have H5N1,'' said Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the University of Saskatchewan's Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization in Canada.
'No, they're going to keep their heads down and be as quiet as possible so that they don't end up at' an immigration detention center, such as Alligator Alcatraz, she said.
Officials with the U.S. Department of Agriculture didn't respond to requests for comment. Neither did the California Department of Public Health, which has been on the front line of worker testing and safety — offering $25 gift cards to workers who agree to be tested and providing personal protective equipment to farmers and workers.
'To imply that the Trump Administration's lawful approach to immigration enforcement is somehow suppressing disease reporting is a leap unsupported by evidence and dismissive of the real work being done by the agency,' a spokesperson for the Health and Human Services Administration said in a statement.
Public health officials say the risk of H5N1 infection to the general public is low. People who work with livestock and wild animals are considered to be at elevated risk.
The Trump administration paused immigration arrests at farms, hospitals and restaurants last month, but later reversed course. This month, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said that there are plenty of able-bodied Americans to perform farm labor and that there would be 'no amnesty' for undocumented farmworkers.
Jennifer Nuzzo, director of the Pandemic Center at Brown University, said that there are two big risks with the administration's crackdown.
Dairy and poultry workers are on the front line of the virus, handling both diseased and infected animals. If they are too afraid to report symptoms or get tested, 'it increases the risk that someone could die because the medicines need to be given early after onset of symptoms,' she said.
Nuzzo said the crackdown also decreases the likelihood that a pandemic could be detected in its early stages.
'The virus needs to change and become easily transmissible between people to cause a pandemic and we need to know about as many infections as possible to track the virus and prevent it from gaining those abilities,' Nuzzo said. '[If] people don't come forward, we can't do that.'
In the spring, eight undocumented workers at a Vermont dairy were arrested; four were ultimately deported. The raids sent shock waves through the small, tight-knit dairy industry of New England and sent a message to dairies elsewhere that no place is safe.
Anja Raudabaugh, chief executive of Western United Dairies, California's largest dairy trade association, said dairy farmers aren't worried about bird flu, adding that measures are in place to protect workers and to prevent a rapid spread of disease.
From a public health perspective, she said, the state is better positioned than it was last year.
'One of the biggest changes in the ground response to Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) is that the occupational health clinics, ERs, and other rural clinics now have access to the testing equipment necessary to detect the virus (where they didn't last year),' she said in an email. In addition, the state's health department has provided the anti-viral medication, Tamiflu, to health clinics 'so the workers feel reinforced that their families can be protected.'
The dairy trade group also has no objections to the immigration crackdown.
'America wants this problem solved and dairy farmers are ready to be part of the solution,' Raudabaugh said. 'We do not fear ICE. These are good, full-time jobs and we hire anyone who loves cows and wants to work in a quiet, blue-collar family environment.'
Dairy farmer Joey Airoso said the effect on both his workers and cows was minimal when his Pixley dairy was hit by the virus last year.
His bigger concern is 'the wide open border that's let a lot of people into are country that are here for the wrong reasons,' said Airoso, who owns about 2,600 head of cattle.
But Raw Farms dairy owner Mark McAfee said he and his neighboring farmers in Fresno County are 'freaked out' by the ICE raids and 'want no part of it.'
McAfee's dairy, which produces raw milk, was shut down by the virus for several months last year. He's worried not only about the virus returning, but also about immigration agents seizing his workers, many of whom are foreign born.
'Everybody we have is legal, but they (ICE) don't give a damn about that — they're picking them up, too,' he said. 'Legal status doesn't mean a lot, and that's really scary, because that's something we all relied upon for previous 25 years of operation.'
One question is whether the state will face another big outbreak of bird flu.
There have been only sporadic infections this summer. Detections of the virus in wastewater is low, and in the last 30 days, only two dairy herds — one each in California and Arizona — and one commercial poultry flock in Pennsylvania have reported outbreaks.
But most experts agree that's likely to change as migrating birds congregate in fields and around lakes as they journey south later this year — passing virus between one another and infecting young birds with no immunity.
'We have 60,000 waterfowl in California right now,' said Maurice Pitesky, a poultry expert at UC Davis. 'By late fall, early winter, that number will jump to 6 million.'
Waterfowl — ducks and geese — are considered the primary carriers of the virus.
Since the virus reappeared in North America at the end of 2022, new variants and widespread outbreaks have followed the migrating birds — infecting poultry farms, resident wild birds, wild mammals, such as racoons, mountain lions and skunks, as well as marine and domestic mammals.
In late 2023, the virus made a jump into dairy cattle. And in the fall of 2024, a new variant — the D1.1 version of the virus — sparked a new outbreak in dairy cows, poultry and other animals.
Andrew Ramey, director of the Molecular Ecology Lab at the U.S. Geological Survey's Alaska Science Center, which monitors for H5N1 in wild bird populations, said one possibility is that the bird flu could return in a more virulent state.
'I think we're all kind of bracing to see what might happen this fall,' he said.